this is me, silent.
listen...

this is me, centered
in my gravity.

i know this place. i have been here many times before.

this is my second, alright, nth attempt at a personal blog. if you can see my panel, you would be nauseated at all the blogs i have in comatose, recumbent and handicapped of substance.

i truly admire writers and bloggers with focus. they know their craft and they hone it with surgical precision.

mine is just all over the place and schizophrenic. i am supposed to know better, right?
wrong. because i don't.

***

i am sorry if i tend to disappoint. those who see me as a vessel of promise, but never fulfilled. those who impose the emptiness on me.

i carry your expectations as my anchor, but they will not define my mileage. they will not weigh me down.

instead they shall be the wind on my back and take me to sanctuaries by myself i cannot.

the off-roads, the pavements, the bends...
you may think i seem to travel with a limp, but the path is rarely straight
and i choose to walk on the edge.

***

for those i have lost because of my absence, know that i was never gone.
i was just out paving some sidewalks with castles of golden sand.

i had planned to launch an entirely new blog dedicated to japanese poetry. however, given my inclination to lose momentum to laziness, err, inertia, it may be a better idea to just introduce a new segment here in blowholes.

for many months now i have been carrying with me a book on haikus, rengas, haibuns, and other types of japanese poetry. i held on to this slim volume like a respirator. i breathed through its pages as i was caught in the undertow of my own blustery thoughts.

fencing them within poetry was the only way for my restlessness to stand still. like some magnetic pole, the pieces would align and find direction and keep north.

i find that japanese poetry purifies and pacifies me. pressing my thoughts through the fine sieve of rhythm and measure, i am able to navigate through the effluence and dead weight of life and find my density, my truth.

a harvest of poetry.

here i cultivate the seed.
here i hope for blooms.

inside my blog are more drafts than there are posts.
much of my stories have remained intentions; unpublished but kept.
but you will not be among them.

you were the only one who survived from a litter of five. your mother, a cat we have never seen, could not have chosen a more dangerous place to give birth. we had a beloved and aging dog who was terribly suspicious of strangers, more so of trespassers. she mercilessly tore at your brood, but left you unscathed.

the violence of nature is never without design.

we took you in and tootsie passed on quietly in the night a few days after that. you, on the other hand, were anything but quiet. oh how you cried. anyone who heard you could not have doubted that you were meant to be here.

i nursed you. at first you can only manage to suckle my shirt, but then you found the perfect spot on my hands: from pinky to the index, stopping short of my thumb. that's how i measured you growing up. as an adult, the habit never left you. up until our last days, you would tenderly nurse on my fingers, your way of taking my hand. we spent many nights falling asleep this way. you on the crook of my arm, lulling me to sleep with a purr that promised dreams of warm snow.

you found the lump that i was too young to have. when i first came out of the hospital, you waited on our bed with a quiet understanding that some things have been lost.

you were gentle and kind. every stray kitten you would take as your own. magically, you would express milk even when all laws of nature said you should not. in your desire to care for a stranger, you willed yourself to give what you did not have. only kindness can conjure such miracles.

you were a contradiction to your kind. you were regal and graceful but you possessed none of the predatory instincts that so defines your species. you never chased rats. oh how you would watch them, take on that stalking pose that you have mastered so well, tremble your limbs, raise your derriere ready for the pounce, and then stop to lick yourself. you paused short of delivering the death blow.

you were a defiance to your nature.
you ate fish but choked on the fish bones. you climbed on high places but needed to be carried down.

the lump you found on me, i found in you. you seemed fine after the operation. but i knew... i noticed your tremors even as you hid them from me. on that day, the seizures were sapping your strength. i stayed by your side. but you held on until all of us were home to say goodbye. you did not want me to be alone when you go. with every labored breath you were breathing for me.

looking back it all makes sense... you had to go because you knew it was time for me to leave.

i miss you, especially on rainy days which we so loved.

and i return to you and to all of me that you have kept safe.

the northern star of my singular horizon.

***

i am a sucker for second chancers.
(which explains why i was so rooting for mickey rourke at the oscars. well that, and his love for animals draws me to him.)

there is something about the comeback kid defying the odds and the naysayers that is triumphant all in itself. there is something about shattering expectations that is always hopeful and exhilirating. something about defiance defies defeat.

never mind if the rise is not as spectacular as the fall.
never mind if the climb happens to be just a few feet off the ground.

a few feet up is enough for a change of view.
a few feet up is still higher ground.
                 up is a few feet closer to the top. 
          feet 
   few
a

midway through the steep, we can see how far up we've come and how far up we can still go.

so i am taking my time, climbing this mountain of mine.

          up, standing
falling                     down.
taking piggyback rides at all my second winds.

===

this post was supposed to be made just prior to the oscars.
let's just say i am giving it another wing.

   silverstein went to wash the shadows
                     and i have to iron the days.

   them's been full of wrinkles and bristles,
   that sunshiny colors seem so misplaced.

   so if you've been looking for me
   and keep unfinding me there,     

   i must have been stuck in one of ‘em puddles.

   i've been looking for an iron
            to smoothen the days

   so finally happyness
                                  can see its own face.

         on firefly nights
         with kaleidoscope eyes
                                we seek for life
                                between the lines

         fading to legend 
         the silent shall sing
                                of rainbow-colored shadows
                                that cold summers bring

         adrift on dreams
         of paper plane wings
                                we write our names
                                across the sky

         fall into grace
         time to exit the stage
                                then i shall be seeing you
                                            polishing the stars

warriors fall but never fail
andiamstillstanding